Low power consumption, and thus long battery life, is critical to the success of next-generation ad-hoc wireless devices. With this in mind, many ad-hoc networks allow nodes to periodically sleep, or power down, in order to conserve battery life. The period of activity and inactivity is usually referred to as a nodes duty cycle (DC). Amounts of data traffic a node experiences will require a certain duty-cycle in order to properly transmit the data within a reasonable time period (i.e., to have a reasonable data delivery rate). Heavy load demands a full duty-cycle while a light load will allow for a low duty-cycle. A technique to determine a node's proper duty cycle is essential to efficient operation. Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for a node to determine a proper duty cycle within an ad-hoc network.